The Sermon on the Mount Part 18

1 I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, 4 and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. (2 Timothy 4:1-4 NASB)

In the passage above (2 Timothy 4:1-4) the word “myths” translates the Greek noun μύθους (mythous), the Accusative, Plural of μῦθος (mythos). It is where we get the English words myth and mythology. In Classical Greek, this is a tale or fable that is “fabricated by the mind in contrast to reality.” In the New Testament, μύθους is always used to denote a cunning fable full of falsehoods and pretenses for the purpose of deceiving others. Those who willingly turn from God’s truth will unwillingly be deceived. Is this happening in our day? Yes it is. Why? It is because most of the visible church won’t tolerate true preaching, which proclaims truth and confronts sin, and so doctrinal error is everywhere: God’s sovereignty has been redefined in the “Open Theism” movement; Christians seek extra-biblical revelation through mysticism and so-called prophecies; hell is denied as a reality; the roles of men and women are blurred or destroyed altogether; homosexuality, fornication, abortion, and other immorality is condoned and even defended; et cetera. This deception has resulted in most of what we call the “visible church” as having zero discernment. Error is rampant because they have willingly turned from God’s truth. In this they have proved that they have not entered by the narrow gate.

13 “Enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way leading to destruction and many are the ones entering through it. 14 How narrow is the gate and constricted the road leading to life and few are the ones finding it.” (Matthew 7:13, 14 Possessing the Treasure New Testament v1)

24 “Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. (Luke 13:24 NASB)

Churchianity is not Christianity though some will disagree with me in saying that. No, Churchianity is a form of idolatry that is man-focused works-righteousness, pietism, Biblical ignorance, church tradition, et cetera. The analogy our Lord gives us in Matthew 7:13, 14 compares genuine Christianity versus false forms of Christianity, which we call the “majority of the visible church.”

Our Lord has given us in Matthew 5, 6 and the first part of Matthew 7 what a genuine Christian looks like in comparison to one who is simply religious. The genuine Christian is one who has entered the Kingdom of God by the narrow gate. It is the only way. There is no other. As we see in Luke 13:24, many seek to come to God their own way, that is by their own religion rather than the narrow way, but, of course, they are not able. Man-made religiosity is the broad way leading to destruction.

It is vital that we stand firm right here my brethren. Post-Modern thinking has crippled the reasoning ability of those who are in darkness. Sadly, many of them are deceived into believing that their religiosity is real Christianity while true Biblical, orthodox, doctrinally sound Christianity is too narrow and those of us who believe that God’s Word is his truth, infallible, inerrant, and complete are just legalistic, judgmental jerks. I was accused of that several times this last week by a certain commenter whose comments I blocked after I allowed him a few so I could make a point. That point was that with each of his accusations that since what I taught was contrary to what he believed then it was simply my opinion rather than what we clearly showed him from Sacred Scripture in context that he was very wrong. Was he convinced? No, he simply became more and more belligerent and rejected the premise we were teaching, that Jesus taught us to not judge hypocritically, not to never judge, using solid Biblical Exegesis with everything in proper context. However, since he disagreed with what we taught then we must be wrong and so it did not matter what the Bible taught, we were incapable of knowing the truth and proved it by not agreeing with him so his accusations increased so I spammed his comments and blocked him.

What was the young man’s problem? If solid Biblical exegesis is not acceptable proof and you have no other recourse but to heckle and accuse, that is, you have no Biblically sound rebuttal then by the way you handle your “debate” you prove you are not within the narrow gate. You are outside and this is proven by your rejection of God’s Word as Truth and the contextual rules of proper Biblical Exegesis are what we use to reveal the truth of his Word to you and you reject and, therefore, this proves that you do not have the mind of Christ, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit who would take the truth from the Word of God that is taught and identify it to you as truth. Hence the seriousness of being a Bible teacher.

Churchianity bypasses the mind and is all about the heart, which is mindless. Genuine Christianity encompasses both. That is why we must become transformed through the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2). This is our sanctification. Those outside of the narrow gate cannot be sanctified because they have never been justified. This is why they do not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and so doing, they turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

Remember my brethren, when accusers come as we stand firm, and they will in these times of deep deception, you will be able to tell those who really are seeking to help you find the truth from those who are simply servants of the evil one. Those who seeking to truly teach us the truth will use solid Biblical teaching, but those in darkness cannot do that. They will only badger and accuse and try to discourage us with their false charges and twisting of scripture. This is why we must know the truth and be ready to defend it.

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4 thoughts on “The Sermon on the Mount Part 18”

Mike, a family member of mine who was once a solid orthodox Christian has gone from doubting the Bible to now totally throwing out the KJV translation. He now embraces Young’s Literal Translation. He no longer believes in hell, etc. I can’t find much on what this translation is really about but was hoping you could shed more light. Is Young a Preterist? This family member started embracing a postmodern theology and only recently stumbled upon Young. I’m baffled as to how to counter his claim that it is the authentic translation of the Bible as opposed to the KJV. Thanks for your insight.

Linda, Let me put some things in perspective before I try to answer this. I have not thrown out the KJV, but I work really hard to discredit KJV-onlyism. The KJV is am important translation in the history of the English Bible. Now, Young’s Literal Translation was made by Robert Young. I did some research into his methodology after I got your comment and immediately saw two issues contributing to your relative’s apparent apostasy. Young focused on two things in his “literal translation” which would make it a very good translation for a Biblical scholar, but could cause a lot of confusion for someone who was not, especially if he or she was not a Christian. That was the preservation of the original word order from the original languages and the original verb tenses even though Greek scholars have long known that the Greeks used present tense as emphasis for past events and were not portraying actual ongoing events. In any case, his translation always does this and makes reading it quite interesting. I understand it since I do translation and see this all the time, but I also know that most of my readers may become confused by it so I try to make things more readable while remaining as literal as possible. Also, he did the very same thing I do in my translations which is leaving off the “the” in front of certain objects even when they are in the text because it would make reading it very strange, but to be “literal” you should put them in, at least with brackets.

I think the verb tense issue may have caused your relative issues with eschatology and could have contributed to him going with preterism. Is he a Hyper-Preterist? I hope not.

However, since you mention that he has post-modern thinker that means he is into relativism and that is why he has rejected certain doctrines like hell. That means he is a “Christian Liberal.” These are huge red flags of apostasy Linda and I fear for his salvation. From the evidence you have given me I fear he may be one who has entered by the wide gate rather than the narrow gate…

You’re absolutely correct Mike what all you’ve written. We Christians are VERY narrow because we have been given the real deal-God’s SON who IS the truth. Once you know the truth–(not a concept) but a Person then you KNOW what Christianity really is all about -Once we have received true riches—(Jesus), nothing in this world compares to HIM. It really is like that song says “the things of this world go strangely dim” when we turn our eyes upon Jesus. Jesus is unique and unlike and one of a kind-God is HOLY and unlike anyone to compare him to.

“Those outside of the narrow gate cannot be sanctified because they have never been justified.”

amen, they’ve never received the ONLY righteousness that is by faith in Jesus Christ, the only righteousness God accepts. They’re too busy trying to justify themselves and seek their own self righteousness.

May God have mercy before it’s too late and grant the fear of the LORD! There IS absolutely no hope apart from GOD. I pray God grants repentance and I cry out to God more than I ever have as I see more and more the opiate of the masses being duped all the way to hell.

Jer 5:31 The prophets prophesy lies, the priests rule by their own authority, and my people love it this way. But what will you do in the end?

and I say the biggest myths men believe in are evolution and questioning God’s infallible word -which is as old as the lie Satan perpetuated in Garden in Genesis “did God really say”

Stand firm in the LORD and in the power of his might that HE is GOD, HE is our Solid Rock and Firm Foundation. His love is unfailing and his mercies are tender every morning. LOOK around and thank the LORD for his wonderful deeds towards men. The taste buds, the very breath of life, our hearts beating in our chests… May people find refuge in the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY !

Therefore, I urge you brothers through the compassions of God to present your bodies as living, holy sacrifices, well pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service. And do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may discern the will of God, that which is good and well pleasing and perfect.

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. (Colossians 1:24-26 ESV)

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The way of escape

"To believe that He will preserve us is, indeed, a means of preservation. God will certainly preserve us, and make a way of escape for us out of the temptation, should we fall. We are to pray for what God has already promised. Our requests are to be regulated by His promises and commands. Faith embraces the promises and so finds relief." - John Owen

How to be free from bondage to our flesh and temptation

"If we do not abide in prayer, we will abide in temptation. Let this be one aspect of our daily intercession: 'God, preserve my soul, and keep my heart and all its ways so that I will not be entangled.' When this is true in our lives, a passing temptation will not overcome us. We will remain free while others lie in bondage." - John Owen

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About me

My name is Mike Ratliff. I am a δοῦλος (slave) of the Κύριον ᾿Ιησοῦν Χριστόν (Lord Jesus Christ.) I have been a Bible teacher since the late 1980's. I am currently learning Koine Greek, which I began in 1992 and will continue to do so until the Lord takes me home. I am Reformed in my theology because I recognize that God is Sovereign over all things. I write these posts as God directs. I am also part of the discernment team at Christian Research Network.

OTHERS MAY, YOU CANNOT

by G. D. Watson

If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. Matthew 16:24-25

If God has called you to be truly like Jesus in all your spirit, He will draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility. He will put on you such demands of obedience that you will not be allowed to follow other Christians. In many ways, He seems to let other good people do things which He will not let you do.

Others who seem to be very religious and useful may push themselves, pull wires, and scheme to carry out their plans, but you cannot. If you attempt it, you will meet with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you sorely penitent.

Others can brag about themselves, their work, their successes, their writings, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing. If you begin to do so, He will lead you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good works.

Others will be allowed to succeed in making great sums of money, or having a legacy left to them, or in having luxuries, but God may supply you only on a day-to-day basis, because He wants you to have something far better than gold, a helpless dependence on Him and His unseen treasury.

The Lord may let others be honored and put forward while keeping you hidden in obscurity because He wants to produce some choice, fragrant fruit for His coming glory, which can only be produced in the shade.

God may let others be great, but keep you small. He will let others do a work for Him and get the credit, but He will make you work and toil without knowing how much you are doing. Then, to make your work still more precious, He will let others get the credit for the work which you have done; this to teach you the message of the Cross, humility, and something of the value of being cloaked with His nature.

The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch on you, and with a jealous love rebuke you for careless words and feelings, or for wasting your time, which other Christians never seem distressed over.

So make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign and has a right to do as He pleases with His own, and that He may not explain to you a thousand things which may puzzle your reason in His dealings with you.

God will take you at your word. If you absolutely sell yourself to be His slave, He will wrap you up in a jealous love and let other people say and do many things that you cannot. Settle it forever; you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit, He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue or chaining your hand or closing your eyes in ways which others are not dealt with. However, know this great secret of the Kingdom: When you are so completely possessed with the Living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have found the vestibule of heaven, the high calling of God.